Pick one’s nose

Khàng phīⁿ-sái

Example:

Tī lâng ê bîn-chêng khàng phīⁿ-sái sī chin pháiⁿ-khòaⁿ koh bô lé-māu.

It’s both disgusting and impolite to pick your nose in front of other people.

Brain drain

Jîn-châi gōa-liû

Sacrificial lamb, scapegoat

Thè-sí-kúi / thòe-sí-kúi

Literally: “ghost who dies in place of (someone or something).”

Related entry here.

Moribund

Khiong-hòa / kiong-hòa

The Maryknoll Dictionary has teh beh siau-bia̍t8, as in teh beh siau-bia̍t8 ê bûn-bêng (moribund civilization).

Related entry here.

Mixed-race (person)

From least offensive to most offensive:

Hūn-hiat ê [“mixed-blood”]
Lām-hoeh [“mixed-up blood”]
pòaⁿ-hóng-á [?]

Of course, there’s always “mutt”:
cha̍p8-chéng-káu
Literally: “dog of ten kinds”

Update: Added the missing eight tone marker to chap8-cheng2-kau2. As you may have noticed, I’ve been having trouble getting the eighth tone to show up in WordPress lately.

Also, I just realized the chap8 of chap8-cheng2-kau2 could also be–and probably is–the chap8 meaning “mixed, confused,” as in hok8-chap8.

Scapegoat

Or: the one to blame, the one who gets picked on

 

Chhàu thâu-ke-á

Literally: scabby-headed chicken

 

I tī ha̍k⁸-hāu lóng chò chi̍t⁸ ê chhàu thâu-ke-á.

He’s always picked on at school.

Interrelated

Hō·-siōng ū koan-hē

Common name, normal name

chhài-chhī-á miâ

Literally: a vegetable-market name

Case

Khè-suh

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Gún seng chí-chhut ū saⁿ chióng gí-giân liû-sit ê lūi-hêng, sui-bóng ū chi̍t kóa saⁿ chióng lóng thàu-lām ê khè-suh.

We’ll first point out that there are three kinds of language loss, although there are some cases where the three kinds are all mixed together.

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The usual Taiwanese word for a judicial or other case is, as in Mandarin,  àn or àn-kiāⁿ, but you’ll often see the English-derived khè-suh.

Fight over the pie

Sio-chiⁿ pun tōa-piáⁿ

Literally means “fight among one another over dividing the big cake.” In other words, fight over how to divide the benefit or the spoils.